Goats to be reintroduced to Gorge

Oregon panel agrees to put up to 20 of the animals there in July

Niki Sullivan, The Associated Press

Published 10:00 pm, Friday, April 15, 2005

SALEM, Ore. -- Rocky Mountain goats will be reintroduced to the Columbia River Gorge this summer under a plan adopted yesterday by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, despite questions over whether the goats are native to the area.

Under the plan, 15 to 20 wild goats will be captured from the Elkhorn Mountains near Baker City and moved to Herman Creek, just east of Cascade Locks, in July.

The hope is to create a healthy goat herd of about 300 for the first time in nearly 200 years, when settlers are thought to have killed off the herd.

Wildlife and hunting organizations, as well as money from current licensing fees, would pay for the project. It will cost about $1,100 to transfer each goat.

But while some say goats are native to the gorge, others question the evidence and say reintroducing the goats could harm the local ecology.

Portland lawyer John Kirk said he has examined the journals of explorers Lewis and Clark and found no verifiable evidence of goats having been on the Oregon side of the gorge.

Kirk argued that more research needed to be done.

"The point of this is not that this introduction should not occur, it's that more scrutiny needs to be done before it occurs," Kirk said.

Dan Edge, a commissioner, said it was critical to find out if the goats are native to the area before reintroducing them, and said it would be "ecologically not the right thing to do" to introduce the goats before the proper studies were done.

There is additional concern that the goats would overpopulate the area and gobble up native plants.

The Forest Service plans to measure the vegetation in the area and monitor it after the goats are released to make sure the reintroduction doesn't harm plant life.